Below are things I’ve learned or found interesting in the past month:
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Uranus is the only planet named after a Greek (rather than Roman) god. The (English) discoverer wanted to name it after King George, but the French refused.
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In 2005, King County, Washington renamed itself from “King County” to “King County”. They wanted to me named after MLK, rather than William Rufus de Vane King, a politician and slaveholder. Interestingly, this decision took 20 years to be passed into law (initially being set forth in 1985).
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The best selling VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray of all time were The Lion King, Finding Nemo, and Frozen respectively.
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Scientists in the 90s studying how Gila monsters can go so long without eating managed to synthesize some of their genes into medicines for diabetes and weight loss.
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Cincinnati, Ohio and Cincinnatus, New York were both named after Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a roman statesman who twice was granted absolute power, solved a crisis at hand, and then stepped down afterward.
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October 30, 2000 was the last time all of humanity was on Earth at once. Since then, at least one person has been aboard the ISS.
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This collection of plots with weird thresholds.
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American vs Finnish customer service (anecdotal).
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This thread about our waning ability to accomplish things (related to forgotten knowledge). Mostly around bureaucracy ($30 million to fix a vibration problem at a nuclear plant that would be fixed in a matter of hours at a conventional power plant) and knock on effects (“There used to be tons of smaller trucks on the road before Obama-era emissions standards made them near impossible. Since standards decrease as vehicle size increases, the easiest way for manufacturers to comply is to build a bigger truck.”).
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In 1968, the Stock Market used to close on Wednesdays to catch up on paperwork, something hard to imagine in the modern day of computerized trading.
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Jake’s Crawfish bar in Portland, Oregon had a urinal duct built in to the floor beneath the bar for, uh, efficiency?
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Concrete never stops hardening while moisture is present. The Hoover Dam was built to outlast humanity, and concrete from the project is still settling today.
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This thread (and quoted tweets) about “raising your vibration”. From one of the quotes:
![emulating the world's quietest choir]()
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Certain polymers no longer form because they have been exposed to a more stable form. This had disastrous effects on ritonavir, an HIV medication, where the stable alternative lacks the medicinal effects of the original. Of especial note, the corruption is so virile that hiring someone who previously was exposed to the more stable form is enough to ruin production at future facilities.
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The US gets more tornados than any other country. Estimates claim as many as 75% of the world’s tornados occur in the US, though this number may be inflated due to under-reporting in places like Russia and Australia.
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Anecdotally, I’ve heard that Friday afternoons are the best time to send marketing emails, while Sundays are especially terrible. Sendgrid suggests that Tuesday at 11am is an ideal time, but notes that you should avoid peak times. Another example where the more people take the advice, the less applicable it is. See also, the tragedy of the commons.
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WaPo analyzes how accurate weather forecasting is across the US.
